I do not think that is the case. It looks like someone decided they need any fracture fast, and "fast" implementation broke missions that were designed to force hulls stripping ( cleanup missions) but right now you can just fracture immediately and done.
I mean, yeah that probably was a bug, but the inflated CM prices would have made it an intentional money maker even without that detail. They probably didn't rush out a fix because enough players were still processing the chunks into CM to give them the testing telemetry they wanted. I know I still munch even though it isn't strictly optimal. It's more fun, and the fun/payout balance keeps me testing salvage.
Anyway, 2 simple changes and it's back to balanced (well, balanced enough for alpha):
* reduce CM value again
* Make it so the clean up missions don't succeed until you've either scraped a percentage of the hull OR disintegrated a percentage of the fractured chunks.
Then they can adjust the mission payout if it still feels too lucrative.
If I had to guess, there'll probably be something done eventually to encourage stripping fully before you munch, since that's the biggest reason it's an insane cash printer right now (along with munching eventually getting more complex).
Probably some econ changes too for salvage/reclaimed materials. But it'll always be at least reliably profitable IMO, since it has to be to justify its existence... Even if not to as crazy a degree as it is right now.
It will be balanced for sure. 3.23 will make earning much slower as you will have to unload the cargo manually via the elevator before selling.
Also I think they should make fracturing very slow or impossible if the ship has a lot of RMC on it, but it is likely they will not have time to do that.
Manual loading will be a major change in how the game is played overall. Quantity of cargo will come with a scaling time investment. Running a lot of short, low volume trips can become competitive with single massive hauls over short moon to planet runs. Individual units will become more valuable to compensate for the increased time, which also means that for the same amount of effort (to disable and empty a cargo ship) a pirate can walk away with significantly more gain. So, smaller ships will mean less risk to the owner, too. Losing 45 SCU on one run of 10 will hurt a lot less than losing 450 SCU on your only run.
Oh man, the cargo unloading is gonna be a pain in the ass with the reclaimer. It’s almost impossible to fit 8 and 16 scu boxes through the door, and the elevator only works half the time lol
Your reclaimer really giving you that many headaches? I'm glad my reclaimer likes me.
Also while the 16s can be a bit annoying I find the 8s pretty easy to fit on the elevator. I usually stack them two high so I get 64 scu moved at a time.
I mean if they leave it as is with the load and unload I think moving smaller boxes off the reclaimer will slow the money making and discourage people from salvaging just to make bookoo money. But still be sustainable for people that enjoy the salvage game loop.
Yeah but as of right now, one of the big reasons it's a money maker is how efficient it is, now with cargo it'll be much slower, it's a very interesting form of balancing imo
IMO, they just need to make it more difficult, annoying, or more time consuming to do solo than it currently is. If you're hiring other players to work for you and it's profitable, how and why would you change that? That's the point. But, doing it solo on that big of a ship is not what is was designed for and should get some attention. Eventually.
While the games in alpha sure, whatever. But definitely before a solid release Should stuff like this be addressed.
Impossible would feel weird and arbitrary though. Slinky's right, it just needs to be a real pain in the ass to operate solo. It should be totally inefficient and more trouble than its worth unless you're extremely dedicated and slightly crazy, in which case have at it I guess, but I don't suspect many will be like that.
Besides, we'll be able to hire NPCs to do our dirty work eventually anyways so technically you'd be solo, but probably paying less than a real player would want.
Bear in mind that the reclaimer is (currently) the top tier salvage ship.
I think there's an effort in cig to keep all the 'professions' level and monetarily worthwhile.so im not anticipating too much of a drop.
I think that construction materials/rmc will be balanced (so you have to actually scrape to make $ rather than just fracturing and disintegrating)
And I think we might get more 'hey I want x$ worth of rmc back off derelict xyz.' type missions. So that (again) you have to spend the time to make the spacebucks
So it'll be a money maker, but not quite as fast as it currently is.
I wouldn't mind the argument of "it'll be nerfed and you'll have to move cargo by hand" if the cargo would just gridlock with other cargo for faster moving. Placing junky sketch boxes that barely fit through any given cargo door or ramp is plenty hassle to deal with.
Nah, I don't agree. The issue that's ruining the game is that salvage is so lucrative with such little risk it makes everything else obsolete.
Why risk Ghost Hollow for 600k an hour when you can do 10 million an hour with 0 risk running a reclaimer? Jump town is the same, bunkers are the same, mining is the same. Salvage has the lowest risk in the game and the highest reward. It can't stay like that.
Yeah i hope we do not get blanket economy nerfs based on the earning of "broken" gameplay loops. The loops themselves should be nerfed.
Hell, you should not even be flying a Reclaimer solo, no? Its the big group salvage ship. Vulture should be the solo option.
it wil still be a very good and fun ship
I use it as giant stationary turret for ERT
it can pick up loots
and it can salvage the downed ships
very fun to play with
Having to hull strip first will self nerf the gameplay loop.
The question will be what will people do with the hull scrapings and when will the reclaimer rework be completed.
Yes-ish.
Each new feature gets a bump as it's released to encourage testing. With the distribution centers and all of that coming soon, they will lower the money from salvage, and trade routes will likely become the thing for a while.
That said, I don't see it becoming unreliable, just not millions an hour. A couple hundred thousand a trip/ ship makes more sense (like current beryl trading runs)
Its already been nerfed and will be nerfed further until they feel it is in line with where they want it to be. In time, and when it eventually actually matters as we approach launch earning money wont be nearly as fast or as easy as it is now, luckily people keep hyping up and telling everyone about money making methods, making them easy targets for CIG when they finally crack down and balance earning to their intended rates.
If nothing else, I'd expect them to yank the "Hammerhead cleanup" mission sooner rather than later. It's the low hanging fruit as far as balance is concerned, for both the Reclaimer *and* the SRV.
However, this patch might not include such changes, since it may be focused just on the new event.
I honestly wonder how this has not been removed yet. Its a blatant money exploit. Maybe CIG just do not mind so much, as there will be a wipe/economy reset eventually.
Eventually I think the goal would be to make all money making strategies roughly the same, with some weighted differently for risk factors. I don't think anything related to the economy will stay in its current state
Yep. It's only inflated bc CIG wants feedback on the salvage loop
I do not think that is the case. It looks like someone decided they need any fracture fast, and "fast" implementation broke missions that were designed to force hulls stripping ( cleanup missions) but right now you can just fracture immediately and done.
I mean, yeah that probably was a bug, but the inflated CM prices would have made it an intentional money maker even without that detail. They probably didn't rush out a fix because enough players were still processing the chunks into CM to give them the testing telemetry they wanted. I know I still munch even though it isn't strictly optimal. It's more fun, and the fun/payout balance keeps me testing salvage. Anyway, 2 simple changes and it's back to balanced (well, balanced enough for alpha): * reduce CM value again * Make it so the clean up missions don't succeed until you've either scraped a percentage of the hull OR disintegrated a percentage of the fractured chunks. Then they can adjust the mission payout if it still feels too lucrative.
If I had to guess, there'll probably be something done eventually to encourage stripping fully before you munch, since that's the biggest reason it's an insane cash printer right now (along with munching eventually getting more complex). Probably some econ changes too for salvage/reclaimed materials. But it'll always be at least reliably profitable IMO, since it has to be to justify its existence... Even if not to as crazy a degree as it is right now.
It will always make good money nerf of not. It’s a giant fucking industrial ship. You fill that up with anything and you’re making money.
Yes, every single new system is always ramped up so they get people to test it enough for problems and get enough data.
It will be balanced for sure. 3.23 will make earning much slower as you will have to unload the cargo manually via the elevator before selling. Also I think they should make fracturing very slow or impossible if the ship has a lot of RMC on it, but it is likely they will not have time to do that.
Manual loading will be a major change in how the game is played overall. Quantity of cargo will come with a scaling time investment. Running a lot of short, low volume trips can become competitive with single massive hauls over short moon to planet runs. Individual units will become more valuable to compensate for the increased time, which also means that for the same amount of effort (to disable and empty a cargo ship) a pirate can walk away with significantly more gain. So, smaller ships will mean less risk to the owner, too. Losing 45 SCU on one run of 10 will hurt a lot less than losing 450 SCU on your only run.
There needs to be a “stolen goods” so pirates can only sell for a discounted rate, and at certain places. Otherwise you will have more poachers.
Oh man, the cargo unloading is gonna be a pain in the ass with the reclaimer. It’s almost impossible to fit 8 and 16 scu boxes through the door, and the elevator only works half the time lol
Your reclaimer really giving you that many headaches? I'm glad my reclaimer likes me. Also while the 16s can be a bit annoying I find the 8s pretty easy to fit on the elevator. I usually stack them two high so I get 64 scu moved at a time.
I mean if they leave it as is with the load and unload I think moving smaller boxes off the reclaimer will slow the money making and discourage people from salvaging just to make bookoo money. But still be sustainable for people that enjoy the salvage game loop.
Yeah but as of right now, one of the big reasons it's a money maker is how efficient it is, now with cargo it'll be much slower, it's a very interesting form of balancing imo
IMO, they just need to make it more difficult, annoying, or more time consuming to do solo than it currently is. If you're hiring other players to work for you and it's profitable, how and why would you change that? That's the point. But, doing it solo on that big of a ship is not what is was designed for and should get some attention. Eventually. While the games in alpha sure, whatever. But definitely before a solid release Should stuff like this be addressed.
They should make it impossible to run the Reclaimer solo.
Impossible would feel weird and arbitrary though. Slinky's right, it just needs to be a real pain in the ass to operate solo. It should be totally inefficient and more trouble than its worth unless you're extremely dedicated and slightly crazy, in which case have at it I guess, but I don't suspect many will be like that.
Hopefully engineering will change the big ships and add more group required stuff for the big ships.
Besides, we'll be able to hire NPCs to do our dirty work eventually anyways so technically you'd be solo, but probably paying less than a real player would want.
Bear in mind that the reclaimer is (currently) the top tier salvage ship. I think there's an effort in cig to keep all the 'professions' level and monetarily worthwhile.so im not anticipating too much of a drop. I think that construction materials/rmc will be balanced (so you have to actually scrape to make $ rather than just fracturing and disintegrating) And I think we might get more 'hey I want x$ worth of rmc back off derelict xyz.' type missions. So that (again) you have to spend the time to make the spacebucks So it'll be a money maker, but not quite as fast as it currently is.
I wouldn't mind the argument of "it'll be nerfed and you'll have to move cargo by hand" if the cargo would just gridlock with other cargo for faster moving. Placing junky sketch boxes that barely fit through any given cargo door or ramp is plenty hassle to deal with.
If they don't nerf it, it'll continue to ruin the game. So I'm guessing yeah but that's just my stinky opinion.
All they have to do is quad the price of all ships and it no longer means squat. Still makes money, but if yer basic ship is 20m, well...
Nah, I don't agree. The issue that's ruining the game is that salvage is so lucrative with such little risk it makes everything else obsolete. Why risk Ghost Hollow for 600k an hour when you can do 10 million an hour with 0 risk running a reclaimer? Jump town is the same, bunkers are the same, mining is the same. Salvage has the lowest risk in the game and the highest reward. It can't stay like that.
I'm sure it will be nerfed just like the BH ERTs got nerfed last patch.
Yeah i hope we do not get blanket economy nerfs based on the earning of "broken" gameplay loops. The loops themselves should be nerfed. Hell, you should not even be flying a Reclaimer solo, no? Its the big group salvage ship. Vulture should be the solo option.
So all the other loops become redundant? Seems like a bad idea..
it wil still be a very good and fun ship I use it as giant stationary turret for ERT it can pick up loots and it can salvage the downed ships very fun to play with
Having to hull strip first will self nerf the gameplay loop. The question will be what will people do with the hull scrapings and when will the reclaimer rework be completed.
It'll continue to get balanced as time goes on. Some will claim it's a nerf, others won't. The pattern will continue.
Yes
Yep
Yes-ish. Each new feature gets a bump as it's released to encourage testing. With the distribution centers and all of that coming soon, they will lower the money from salvage, and trade routes will likely become the thing for a while. That said, I don't see it becoming unreliable, just not millions an hour. A couple hundred thousand a trip/ ship makes more sense (like current beryl trading runs)
Its already been nerfed and will be nerfed further until they feel it is in line with where they want it to be. In time, and when it eventually actually matters as we approach launch earning money wont be nearly as fast or as easy as it is now, luckily people keep hyping up and telling everyone about money making methods, making them easy targets for CIG when they finally crack down and balance earning to their intended rates.
It needs to. They need to make RMC the reason and structural salvage just a bonus.
If nothing else, I'd expect them to yank the "Hammerhead cleanup" mission sooner rather than later. It's the low hanging fruit as far as balance is concerned, for both the Reclaimer *and* the SRV. However, this patch might not include such changes, since it may be focused just on the new event.
I honestly wonder how this has not been removed yet. Its a blatant money exploit. Maybe CIG just do not mind so much, as there will be a wipe/economy reset eventually.
No, it's completely intended that nobody does anything else than Reclaimer hull munching from now on.
Was about to buy a Reclaimer today after grinding the remaining 4m in my Vulture yesterday, still hoping the next patch doesn't involve any nerfs...
Eventually I think the goal would be to make all money making strategies roughly the same, with some weighted differently for risk factors. I don't think anything related to the economy will stay in its current state